Unemployment down to 5.6%

Generali

Ronaldo_Mconaldo wrote: »

And how much government cash do you expect to pay to perform the "who's happy in their job" survey of the entire country? It's pretty straight forward, the method to measure unemployment is the same now as it was when Labour were last in power. It shows unemplyment is well down, now compared to then.

It further shows that employment is up massively too.

Under this Government a third of unemployed people have found jobs, 6 figures worth of redundant public sector workers have found jobs and perhaps a million immigrants have found work too. Not bad for a set of economic policies that were economic disaster according to everyone. I think the UK could probably do with another 5 years of economic ruin;)

lucielou5

I must be living in a different country to the OP.
I have personally seen good people broken by this Governments assault on the poor (working AND non-working).
I've discovered friends who have needed to use food banks (and kept it secret at the time for the 'shame' of it).
I have a son with special needs who (despite an excellent work record) was let go from his job with the local council and is now caught up in a never ending spiral of 'training schemes' and Work Fare.
I could go on, but what's the point?
I'm so grateful that I'm not hungry or homeless. I'm also grateful that I live in the real world, see through the lies and retain my compassion.

prowla

I think that the term "in employment" needs to be scrutinized.

Perhaps the real measure should be "in full time employment".

michaels

I thought the whole reason for using the household survey data rather than the claimant count was to avoid the definitional issues around claimant count that seem to so upset the negative posters. Similarly 30 years ago when I was starting out in employment most of the jobs were temp and or casual in bars, resturants, on farms etc and no one doing them called them zero hours or was suprised that more hours were offered some weeks than others.

I'm afraid the foodbanks thing I no very little about, I know personally I always keep a cushion of money at the expense of going out, buying things or even spending the bare minimum on food so even if the worst had happened I would not have been penniless while waiting to receive benefits but perhaps it is unfair to expect everyone to have the intelligence to love their live in a sensible rational manner?

buglawton

michaels wrote: »

At the last general election it was 7.9% and climbing.

.....

Of course the flip side of this has been the 'exploitation' of cheap labour, low investment and low productivity and a stark distinction between the French model of high wages, high productivity and high unemployment. Of course which you think is preferable comes down to your political persuasion and we are about to be asked to vote on it.

Or the German model, lowish unemployment, high wages, high productivity, high exports, realistic taxes, realistic cost of living due to high housing availability plus thrifty consumer attitudes.

In fact we In the UK don't get a chance to vote for an alternative in May, the parties are only offering sticking plaster solutions and are just appealing to one or another of the voters' base instincts.

Generali

buglawton wrote: »

Or the German model, lowish unemployment, high wages, high productivity, high exports, realistic taxes, realistic cost of living due to high housing availability plus thrifty consumer attitudes.

In fact we In the UK don't get a chance to vote for an alternative in May, the parties are only offering sticking plaster solutions and are just appealing to one or another of the voters' base instincts.

High incomes? You must be talking about a different Germany to the one I know in the middle of Europe.

Average net incomes in Germany are EUR6 a week higher than in the UK:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage

Not everyone can run a trade surplus unless we're going to export stuff to the moon. The fact is that running a trade surplus is just as fragile a position as running a trade deficit. It's generally a sign of an undervalued currency and is rather dependent on foreigners allowing you to continue to destroy their industries rather than simply adding a tax to your exports to allow fair competition.

antrobus

BobQ wrote: »

It may well be the case that the actions of the Coalition in relation to benefits system have initiated some structural changes that have affected the figures and there is probably no single reason. .....

No, because unemployment is based on data from the Labour Market Survey, and is not affected by changes to the benefit system.

BobQ wrote: »

....It may be the case that people who expect that they would not receive benefits do not register at all. There has also been a cultural change where some people feel more demeaned, humiliated and dehumanised by a system that subjects then to more scrutiny, hassle and harassment to get benefits which may have changed people's behaviours. Some would say this is the intention of the system to deter people claiming.

Another factor is that there are more people who register as self employed even when they have less work than they want so do not count. Also there are many more people living with parents than there used to be, and this may make them less likely to register....

Even if all that were true, it would still have no effect on the unemployment figure.

BobQ wrote: »

...We also know that some of those on ZHCs may have little work yet still count as employed.... .

Actual hours worked are currently a little higher than they were in the same period in 2007 for example. So that is very unlikely to be of an explanation of anything.

BobQ wrote: »

...It also seem to me that the black economy is still thriving judging by the number of cash in hand discounts I am offered....

If the black economy is indeed 'thriving', wouldn't that mean that unemployment is even lower?

BobQ wrote: »

..The question in my mind is do people believe the figures anymore, or, to put it another way, do they actually reflect the level of unemployment?.....

Yes, and yes.

BobQ wrote: »

...The Thatcher/Major government that Cameron seems to enjoy copying ideas from used to manipulate the way the figures were calculated so it would not be surprising if there were also factors like this in play, particularly in the last year before the election..

The data is produced by the ONS. Are you seriously suggesting that the ONS fiddles the numbers only when there is a Conservative in 10 Downing Street?

Spidernick

Generali wrote: »

As for the zero hours thing? A lot of that just reflects the change in status of casual workers. The large majority of people on zero hours contracts want to be on a zero hours contract. For most the flexibility is a two way street. When I was a casual worker that was very much the case: it suited me to be able to scale down my workload as exams approached and scale them back up in uni holidays.

I'll admit to coming from a position of ignorance here (having never been on a ZHC) but is the above in bold really the case for most people? Surely the power ultimately lies with the employer and if said employer says 'we'd like you to come in and work today' and you point out that it doesn't really suit you, aren't they are going to feel negative towards you and not offer you something next time round as you are seen as 'unreliable'?

As I say, I don't have experience of these, so perhaps the above isn't the case a lot of the time, but I'd be surprised if not.

As for the stats themselves: any stats, especially those with a political angle, can be interpreted in a way that suits any position to the extent that they become all but meaningless. I'd have thought that the majority of people will go with the anecdotal 'evidence' they see on a day-today basis.

antrobus

audigex wrote: »

As far as I can tell "Unemployment" is a nonsensical stat

"Unemployment" is simply those who fit in the criteria for a government category. A criteria which has been slowly narrowed to exclude more people....

No it isn't. The ONS uses the ILO definition of unemployement, which is the same one that everybody uses.

audigex wrote: »

...The fact people are being forced off benefits etc is reducing the number too, since it only really counts claimants....

Wrong again. Unemployment is a different statistic from claimant count.

audigex wrote: »

.."Unemployment" statistics are useless, because you can shift people off that number simply by requiring them to undertake training to get their benefits, then listing them as "In training" rather than "Not in Employment, Education or Training"

Again wrong. And for the same reason.

audigex wrote: »

.
What we really need to see is the "Employment" statistic.

The ONS have one. You can look it up.

audigex wrote: »

.."How many people are in proper employment? ie they're either in full time, permanent employment earning at least the national minimum wage, or are part time/temporary/contracting/zero hours through their own choice because that suits their personal circumstances, not because it was the only job available". How many people actually have a proper job of the style they want, essentially...

Probably about a few thousand.

I mean, seriously, how many people do you think have got a "job of the style they want"? Doesn't everybody want a job that pays a £1,000 an hour with a five day weekend?

audigex wrote: »

..Every government does the same fudging of statistics, but it means they're never directly comparable. The only useful metric is the above number of people in "real" work, as a proportion of the working age population.

The statistics are produced by the ONS. Why do you feel it necessary to insult the integrity and professionalism of those public sector employees?

CLAPTON

buglawton wrote: »

Or the German model, lowish unemployment, high wages, high productivity, high exports, realistic taxes, realistic cost of living due to high housing availability plus thrifty consumer attitudes.

In fact we In the UK don't get a chance to vote for an alternative in May, the parties are only offering sticking plaster solutions and are just appealing to one or another of the voters' base instincts.

it's a mystery to me why every country in the world doesn't copy the German model.

Presumably you were here in 2007 when UK unemployment was round 6% and German 10% and begging for us to copy 'their' model.